Thomas Frank is a political analyst, historian, and journalist. He cofounded and edited The Baffler magazine. He is the author, most recently, of The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism.
Two writers, Thomas Frank and Joan Williams, provided sharp insight into the Democrats’ hemorrhaging of working-class voters eight years ago. The Democratic Party ignored their perspectives. We asked them to explain how we ended up here — again.
Urban elites’ contempt for rural America is centuries old — but so is rural populist resistance.
In an interview, writer Thomas Frank discusses how populism brought together workers, farmers, and all those struggling against the wealthy for a more egalitarian society — and why that’s made it a dirty word for the elite, both in the 1890s and today.